Nackoney parlays hardcourt success into hockey job

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This article was published 25/07/2020 (2282 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Dave Nackoney had to evacuate his home due to a fire two years ago, he stopped to grab two things: His family’s passports and a red Emily Clark hockey sweater.

He wears it proudly whenever Team Canada plays, the Maple Leaf on his chest and the Saskatoon product’s signature in the No. 26 on the back. It’s a symbol of where sport took Nackoney, and the profound impact five years of Brandon University Bobcats basketball still has on his life and relationships with athletes today.

Shockingly to many, perhaps most to the Brandonite himself, he predominantly works with hockey players now at the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, B.C.

“I would have never, ever guessed that. It’s the biggest hockey academy in North America and it’s been my job for the past 20 years,” Nackoney said via phone interview.

“You go in knowing almost nothing about the sport and after 19 years I know quite a bit. I have a son who’s involved in it and it’s been a great learning experience.”

Nackoney kept his other job, teaching at Penticton Secondary while managing six male and two female hockey teams at the academy.

Hockey was foreign to the six-foot-four small forward, but he had a knack for connecting with athletes. As a guidance counsellor earlier in his career, he worked with the OHA owner’s daughter. She said she enjoyed working with Nackoney and the owner brought him in to help keep athletes on track in school, among other duties.

It works because he knows a thing or two about achieving lofty goals. Nackoney joined the Bobcats after their first Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union — now U Sports — championship in 1987, helping complete a historic three-peat the following two years. Both titles and the three heartbreaking losses at nationals that followed offered valuable lessons that help him connect with players today.

“It’s surprising how similar it is. Sports is sports,” Nackoney said.

“It’s a lot different athlete than a basketball player, but the connection, understanding winning, understanding failing, understanding the hard work it takes, in these cases a lot of kids are away from home so you got to be able to work with that. Being a dad of three kids, it all helps you work with the young adults you’re working with.

“… I always felt basketball players were far superior athletes. But the hockey athlete’s just different. You can be a five-foot-10 kid who can’t jump, but your hand-eye coordination and ability to skate backwards or forwards, it’s a very tenacious game, but you watch a hockey practice and see drills and go ‘It’s not all that different.’”

The academy has produced a bundle of NHL players, most recently Michael Rasmussen, taken ninth overall in the 2017 draft by Detroit. It’s also the old stomping grounds of Brandon Wheat Kings forward Ben McCartney, and former Brandon blue-liner Schael Higson.

Some players have closer relationships with staff than others, and that of Nackoney and Clark is special to both. When Team Canada selected to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics, she was allowed to send a sweater to someone who influenced her journey, which included three seasons of NCAA DI hockey at the University of Wisconsin.

“She was just so heavily recruited. She was the No. 1 female hockey player in North America. I went through the recruiting process with her where many schools were calling. I tried to be supportive through her journey,” Nackoney said.

“We’d always been in touch and she’s a prairie girl. Those prairie people always tend to be friendly and we always connected.

“You certainly know the work ethic involved. One of the things you really learn is it’s not easy and there are pitfalls. Keeping positive through those pitfalls, trying your best to move forward, you can relate that way.”

Nackoney learned how to work hard early in life. He had to just to play in the ultra-competitive Brandon basketball scene back in the 1980s.

“The best basketball in the province when I grew up was easily in Brandon,” Nackoney said.

“All three high schools had so much talent. It was a lot of fun because we competed against each other, there was great coaching — my high school coach Dan Ragnovich was absolutely amazing, Dwight Kearns who ended up coaching the Bobcats was our crosstown rival coach.

“It was just an amazing time.”

The Bobcats were on the rise, and took the time to play with high school players during summers. Whether or not anyone on what’s now the Henry Champ hardcourt knew it at the time, success was breeding success. Nackoney said he and his Vincent Massey teammates lived in that gym.

“You start playing with some of the best players in the country and the gym’s packed, it’s an exciting environment to grow up in for a young person,” Nackoney said.

“Easily the person I idolized was Johnny Carson. I played with him since I was a young kid and he was so good to us, in particular me. He was just a great person, always took time to talk to you and always included you. As a young guy, that was kind of special.”

Nackoney’s Vikings bowed out in the provincial quarterfinals in Grade 10, finished second in Grade 11, then capped off his high school career with a decisive 77-61 provincial final victory over Tec Voc in 1987. First, Massey had to stop Crocus Plains from taking its ninth straight city championship with a 54-48 win Game 3 of the best-of-three final series. Nackoney dropped a game-high 21 points in the contest.

While Nackoney said his Vikings hoped for an all-Brandon final — Crocus lost in the semifinals — it was certainly a great way to go out.

“We were ready from all the years of playing together. We were ready to play in a big game like that. The experience of many years gave us a chance to have great success in that final,” said Nackoney, who was named tournament MVP.

“You have to give absolutely everything to our coach. Our coach committed to us and Vincent Massey was a Grade 7 to 12 school, it was a journey where he put time into us all through there.

“The biggest thing he did was emphasize being a good person too, keeping us young guys straight and narrow, working hard and not doing anything silly along the way.”

Nackoney averaged 23.4 points and 9.7 rebounds per game that season, shooting 60.6 per cent from the field and earning a national junior training camp invite.

Heralded as the top player in Manitoba, he had a long list of schools after his talents. The Sun reported in 1987 that it came down to Brandon and Winnipeg, though Nackoney’s mind was made up in one raucous moment. Carson threw down a dunk to seal BU’s first national title over UBC.

“That moment just sealed the deal: You had to be a Bobcat. There were so many great players that played at Brandon, and the culture of winning, there was just no other choice,” Nackoney said.

Nackoney soon found out what it took to create that winning culture behind the scenes. He recalls those practices in his rookie season as exhausting and physical as anything.

“I could remember in high school I never lost a set of lines in my life. At BU, I never won one,” Nackoney said.

“I felt that it was really competitive. You had to be competitive back. This one time in practice I took an elbow and I remember … Marvin Russell taking me aside and saying, ‘You get an elbow, you got to give an elbow. That’s just the way it is.’”

After battling through those practices during the week, games were easy.

Led by national player of the year Patrick Jebbison, BU went 16-0 in Great Plains Athletic Conference play and defended its CIAU title with an 81-68 victory over Acadia.

Simply put, that Brandon group was dominant.

“A lot of men there, that’s for sure. We weren’t kids. Coach (Jerry Hemmings) was very driven, passionate and it was a very passionate group. The expectation was nothing but win,” Nackoney said.

“To be honest when we played a lot of teams I believe they thought we were going to win. There was an expectation that Brandon was a darn good team. Once we started rolling, it was hard for other teams to compete.”

It really didn’t take long for the Bobcats to get back in the gym and start the quest for a three-peat.

They hit the reset button and reloaded. Point guard Courtney Bailey graduated, and former University of Winnipeg Wesmen guard Joey Vickery stepped seamlessly into the backcourt alongside David Dominique.

And it might have helped a bit to still have Jebbison and second-team all-Canadian Whitney Dabney.

“I think we were by far the most talented team in the country, but talent doesn’t always make a great team. We had to really learn to play together,” Nackoney said. “People had to accept roles to make yourself a great team and that was a lot of coach’s job.”

It would have been hard to find a lineup that couldn’t compete. Brandon went 11-1 in GPAC, sweeping Regina in the conference final.

Then back in Halifax — nationals were held there every year from 1984 to 2007 — Brandon dispatched Concordia and Toronto by matching 85-73 scores, then edged Victoria 74-73 in an all-time great title game.

“The second time is so much easier because you know. It was in Halifax, you go back to Halifax and you know what to expect. For me being in my second year, it was a lot easier,” Nackoney said, relatively speaking.

“It’s something so hard to do and you’ve done it twice, or in this case three times.”

Nackoney made the trip back to Nova Scotia each of his next three seasons, but would never win another national quarterfinal. His third year was when Hemmings went on sabbatical and Ron McCutcheon stepped in to coach the team to a 10-2 record and GPAC title, before bowing out in an eight-point loss to Victoria. Nackoney led the nation in field-goal percentage and averaged 15.5 points per game.

Nackoney posted 13.8 ppg his fourth year, then finished fourth in conference scoring at 18.1 ppg in his final season, when his hopes of one last title were dashed in an 86-75 loss to UBC.

In that moment, being a two-time national champion was little consolation.

“Winning changes everything in your perception of the whole event. When you win, it just gives you a better feel as you look back, but making it to nationals for five straight years, getting out of GPAC … I feel very fortunate we were able to get to Halifax every year,” Nackoney said.

“When I’m a fifth-year player and we don’t win a national championship you almost feel you let people down because that’s our goal. We had such talented rookies like Keith Vassell and Euan Roberts and you’re just so driven to win.

“As you step back from it now you realize it’s a huge journey and blends into a great adventure, but at the time you feel empty when you don’t win.”

Nackoney stuck around and helped coach the team while completing his master’s degree, then was off to British Columbia. He married former BU women’s athlete of the year Lynn Zemliak, and now has two daughters, Payton (22) and Myah (20) and son Dahnte (15).

He got into coaching right away with a Grade 8 boys’ basketball team, eventually heading what he said were some of the top varsity boys’ squads in the province at Penticton Secondary. Armed with years of experience under Hemmings and Ragnovich, he had no shortage of coaching wisdom.

“Playing basketball is an all-year thing where you’re training, weight training, keeping fit, showing up in the mornings. You have to put in the time: The coach can’t be the guy putting in the most time in the gym,” Nackoney said.

“They got to be good people. I don’t put up with guys being eggheads. They’re representing their school, their families and when you have a real play-hard, be-respectful person, good things happen.”

Nackoney must have done something right. In 2002, he was named the B.C. high school coach of the year. He chuckles that he had no idea he was getting the honour and didn’t attend the awards banquet. He found out while out with former Bobcat Don Lamond, and quickly shared the praise with his team.

“It’s never just one person,” he said. “I was coach of the year but Doug Scotchburn, an ex-Bobcat, was there and it was many people coaching many different levels that led to such great players. I might have been the recipient of it but it was a huge team approach.”

Nackoney certainly learned the importance of putting the team first at BU. He noted that was made easier being part of the best team in the country because “everything’s easier when you’re winning,” but it’s a change not every player grasps at the next level.

“It’s humbling to work really hard at something and accept roles. When you’re an adult, you realize that’s just life,” Nackoney said.

Now 51, with his time in the Wheat City more than half his lifetime ago, Nackoney still appreciates the impact of his prairie upbringing and five years as a Bobcat.

“Anyone that’s won a national championship or anything big, you always have that. It’s always something that sticks with you,” Nackoney said.

“I didn’t realize that at the time. It was a big deal and it was exciting, but it’s just something I can tell you I cherish my whole life … It keeps you bonded to that group of people for life.”

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